Scotland case study: Facilitating thoughtful community feedback on complex policy ideas via the Citizens' Jury
Some cities have surveys. Or focus groups. San Jose has 2-min public comment slots. But Edinburgh, Scotland uses a randomly chosen 12–24 person “Citizen's Jury” to debate and deliberate ideas for policymakers—and the methodology looks quite promising. The Social Science & Medicine journal analyzes, below.
The Edinburgh Citizens’ Jury on Genetic Test Results and Life Insurance was convened over three full days in July 2004. This timescale was chosen to enhance the scope for information building, active learning, critical scrutiny and agenda forming deliberation (Coote & Lenaghan, 1997; Stewart, Kendall, & Coote, 1994) among people with no prior experience of the issue. In addition to the research team, who acted as independent moderators, three groups of participants were involved: ‘expert witnesses’ who provided information (a former Chief Underwriter, a specialist in Public Health Genetics and a Researcher of genetic testing and insurance policy); ‘policy advocates’ who defended particular policy directions (from genetics and health interest groups and from the insurance industry); and the Jury itself, which, following scrutiny and deliberation, was charged to reach a ‘verdict’.
Jurors were recruited from responses to an initially random sample of 1200 names from the Edinburgh electoral register. A three-day exercise dictates a degree of self-exclusion, and full-time employees were under-represented in the 113 positive responses we received. This pool of potential jurors was subsequently stratified by employment status, age, sex, and housing tenure, to secure a sample of 14 jurors approximately evenly split across categories. This is not to argue that people can only represent those who share their characteristics; rather it is an attempt to secure the diverse resources for deliberation that a wide range of backgrounds delivers (Smith & Wales, 2000). The final Jury comprised six men and eight women; six home owners and eight renters; seven people in paid employment and seven selected from students, homemakers, retired and unemployed people. All but one attended for the full three days; each received a single payment of £150 at the end of the programme to cover their costs.
Each day performed a distinct purpose:
Knowledge building: ‘Expert witnesses’ presented essential background information, explaining the basics of life insurance underwriting, the science of genetic testing, and the current policy framework, including the moratorium.
Cross-examination: A ‘court’ session in which three policy advocates presented their preferred ‘post-moratorium policy model’, before defending this model against questions from the Jury.
Deliberation: First, by a panel of witnesses and advocates to an agenda set by jurors; second by the Jury itself leading to a ‘verdict’ in favour of one of three policy models. Jurors were asked to consider three policy options which might follow the expiry of the moratorium on the use of genetic tests by insurers. …
A key finding from this research is that not only can a Citizens’ Jury understand, articulate and warrant plausible concerns about complex social problems, its members can also express and develop normative ideas collectively. That is, we found Citizens’ Juries to be a practical method for developing an understanding of its members’ generalisable interests. So the Jury offered a balanced account of how things are, but it also negotiated, from complex starting points and amid a variety of competing interests, a vision of how things ought to be. …
The participatory research conducted with the Edinburgh Citizens’ Jury provides good grounds for challenging the scepticism of policymakers towards the experiences and expertise of ‘the public’. This is true even, perhaps especially, in complex areas dependent on public understandings of science, or in perplexing (even tedious) subjects around financial services. You do not have to be a member of the Human Genetics Commission or the Genetics and Insurance Committee, nor do you have to be a politician, insurer or NGO, in order to be able to conduct well-informed, practically relevant discussions about a complex ethical and policy issue like genetic testing and insurance. The members of the Edinburgh Citizens’ Jury demonstrated an ability to assimilate information, critically evaluate evidence, and deliberate in a sophisticated fashion, on a complex topic that at first glance may have been thought unlikely to hold their attention.
The Citizens’ Jury approach does, moreover, have some advantages over the use of traditional participatory research methods such as focus groups. First, while it allows the incorporation of lay knowledge, it also recognises the value of knowledge-building—to ensure that jurors are equipped with a wide range of perspectives and arguments which they are free to evaluate. Second, the Citizens’ Jury requires the cross-examination of witnesses and advocates; it not only harnesses what jurors know and are told, but also benefits from their ability to determine what they need to know. It allows them to set their own agendas and respects their ability to critically to evaluate competing views. Indeed, whilst the Jury approach begins with the establishment of ‘expert’ witnesses and a ‘lay’ Jury, this expert/lay division is, to an extent, transcended through the course of the proceedings, such that by the final deliberations, the Jury are also experts. Third, the lengthy process encourages Jurors to develop their own normative views. It does not assume that jurors arrive at an issue with clearly defined preferences, on a subject to which they may have given little, if any, previous consideration. Rather it begins with the premise that these values are negotiated through deliberation itself—the very essence of deliberative democracy.
There are of course some points of reservation. On a practical note, the exercise is expensive. Neither the expert witnesses nor the policy advocates were paid for their participation. However, travel expenses were paid, as were accommodation and meals, generating a cost of £1700. Together with the £2100 of payments to the jurors, and the costs of mailouts, printing, and transcription, the total cost of the jury came to over £5000, not including the cost of principal investigators, research assistance and estate.
Read the whole thing here (behind paywall).
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